after 13 beautiful seasons (5 years!!!), 5 with Wildfire and the remaining with me, I feel that the Leagues have reached their aim and cannot go further. Troubles of scheduling and the lack of players make me feel that they are on their way down.

So I declare that I will not follow them anymore with this format and I hope that a new and better format will arise for next year (that I could be glad to follow again as a TD).

I fully share this analysis.
League has been stuck with the same pool of players over the last 5 editions. Not that it's that bad, but I guess it's time to come up with something else.

For 2er Asia, 2er Swiss, 2er AAT, and why not TAG, we (Drake, Qorlas and I) have already some ideas easy to implement and that would fuel the TELO.

1) Troubles with scheduling:
Well, he had to rule 4 matches this season.
One smooth and easy, the other 3 involving the same player.
So in fact ONE issue.
Is that bad?
Doesn't every tournament have at least one issue with scheduling matches? My feeling says NC and other normally have more than one.

2) Lack of players:
Sure, some of the tops are missing.
But would they play if the format were different?
Or is it normal, that players who have been around "forever" just don't play everything out there?
I think the new rules, that allow good players to return to the group where they were before they quit may help to get some back.

---

What I like about the League as it is:
EASY scheduling - flexibility over 7 or more weeks is good
Groups with players of comparable strength for really interesting competition.

Before we declare it dead I'd like to know:

Is there anyone who does not intend to play the next season of League (in case there is one), but would play something different (if the format were changed).
If yes, what changes would you like to see?
Let's decide depending on the answers we get here.

Is there anyone who does not intend to play the next season of League (in case there is one), but would play something different (if the format were changed).
If yes, what changes would you like to see?

I would play next League season if there is no change, and would probably play a new format.

I only played 2 seasons but never had those terrible schedule issues so much players seems to have when you read the forum. If you send enough private messages and have a look at who is connected when you're in the lobby, you should have no problem.
A few schedule issues at each season is not so intolerable since a TD can settle it.

Honestly I like the Leagues we had until now. I don't really have in mind any better format even if I'm quite responsive about a new format. We must have a continuous format and not only punctual tournaments.
However I'm not sure having a longer season would be better. The divisions should be reset at least 2 times by year. Or we should have a system without divisions but the player must have the feeling of a progression (something like what Drake suggested in another thread).

League is a rhetorical figure that would lead to a discussion over the format. That does not certainly mean that the whole concept has to be thrown away. It really does not hurt to have a discussion after 13 seasons.

I really like the original idea of the League offering players an opportunity to play competitive games against players they do not know, or players they would never have a chance to play.
Mixing competition and community.

I would use that thread to raise a few questions :

Does the ladder as it works at the moment still make sense ?
I.e : Jumping from C to A or D to B because people do not play 2 seasons in a row.

Is the goal of League to play a variety of opponents ?
In that case ladder does not make sense, and it'd be better to see a Round Robin with groups and then a play-off with the best players of the season.

Is the goal of League to establish a strong hierarchy between players and have players of the same level play each other ?
Then ladder makes sense, but can not be continuous any more.
I mean, promotion/relegation lost his purpose when players decided not to sign up the following season.

I have played all 13 seasons, and it seems every single season, I end up playing half my matches in the final week. It doesn't matter if I post in the forums I want to get matches done early, or if I send PMs right when the season starts. This last season, I said screw it, and didn't send out any PMs at the beginning, and look what happened. If it was NC or SPWC the matches would have been scheduled and played. There is no sense of urgency to get matches played, especially if you are losing your division anyway, why not just ignore it for a while and then guess what? the other player gets screwed and doesn't win the division eventhough it was clear that they would.

There is an idea floating around of larger groups and longer time to play, but I think this is an even worse idea.

I would still play in a Euro-League just because there isn't an alternative right now, like there is for USA (i.e. NC), but I would prefer a different format.

Looking over the past 2 seasons, there are some players missing this season. Did they just take a break for 1 season, or are they done with league? Angel, Toutoune, Elric, Schwen, suburu, etc. Then there are players who haven't played these past 2 season, but maybe they would come back if a different format, I don't know. Chris, Pegaso, xbomanx, Goscha, daedin, pifbat, etc. And lastly, if the format changes which of the current players would drop out?

At the very least, I think the matches need to be 6 games - 3 starts each, not best of 7. Also, I never liked the idea of being able to jump 2 divisions, especially C-A, or drop 2 for that matter. Also I would vote for smaller, shorter leagues (4 people,5 weeks, vs. 8 people, 10 weeks). A whole new format would be more interesting to me, either way.

I am agree with all. Specially that players can jump 2 levels up or down is a no go. I want a format of 10 to max 16 players how like Whitetrain written before with time frame how like League in football, baseball, handball and so on. Example give the players 2 weeks time to play their pairings matches. We can discussing over time frame before new league is starting. Only players that accepts the time frame are allowed to sign in. 10 players 18 weeks to play or 16 players 30 weeks to play. I see no problem anyway. We dont must to play 3 or 4 seasons per year. Only 1 or 2. The points system how like football, Icehokey and s.o for a win 3 points and if it is a tie 1 point for both players. I am very confident that a new league with a new format give it a new try.

Sysyphus - Pommard schrieb am Mon, 16 September 2013 18:27

Is the goal of League to play a variety of opponents ?
In that case ladder does not make sense, and it'd be better to see a Round Robin with groups and then a play-off with the best players of the season.

1. We keep league as it is like dea suggests.
If so, I still would like to know how get those "lost players" back.
There's probably ways to make the current format better.

2. Proposal for a League based on suggestions above.

Round Robin :
4 groups of 10-12-14-16 players according to TELO.
Full schedule released, play opponents in order.

Playoff :
Winners of each group fight in a Final Four. SF then Final (+final for 3rd).
They are ranked from 1st to 4th.

Second of each group play a Final Four. Same process.
They are ranked from 5th to 8th.
Third of each group play a Final Four.
Ranked from 9th to 12th.
(...)
Seventh of each group play a final four and are ranked from 25th to 28th.
(...)
Twelth of each group play a final four and are ranked from 45th to 48th.

Cons :

Format is heavy

Schedule still lies on the players' communication

Pros :

Longer League : rewards consistency. Then fireworks with head-to-head. RR = similar to soccer championship etc, Playoff = head-to-head, like any playoff in American sports or European Cups in basketball, soccer or whatever.

First round offers a chance to play all kind of players with still a good overall strength.

Every match in Round Robin has a purpose.

Playoff : you play players of your level, head-to-head.

We end up with a full ranking. Everybody fights for something and compare their result of the previous year. You can situate yourself in TTR's hierarchy. You can brag if you don't like TELO.

Everybody still has a chance to fight for something after Round Robin.

Yearly event, 1 season. No reset, no weird promotion, no relegations.

If we have 32 of the TELO's top 50. That's already 8 of those players that you would face in your group. I think that's interesting. With 24, that's already 6 of them !

It's a draft of proposal, nothing that I intend to impose or whatever like that.
Without proposals, discussion is not gonna go anywhere.

I know Drake is not fond of it at all because of schedule issues that may arise.

Sometimes it may be good to revisit why we started leagues in the first place and see if the purpose is still valid and needed.

My sense is leagues started because there was some down time between tournaments. So League was a nice change of pace, with variant that players play at some expected level. Then there was this added dimension of the ladder, a unique twist to moving up and down.

Surely the good quality about leagues was the sense of freedom that you had weeks over which to play the matches.

But my sense(no figures to back this up, just a sense) of the failure of leagues came about because:
1. When a person lost their group setting, they dropped down, which ended up meaning the player usually dropped OUT. (be interesting to see stats on that factor)

2. If you skipped a session you were penalized. Which made for a "whoa" reaction, and again people often dropped feeling 'do I need this?'

3. With the advent of more tournaments, it felt like League was happening too often, and almost interfering. This combined with the lack of the 'special-ness factor' made the League become routine.

So for the future, how do you grab a special-ness factor again?
AND how do you keep people from dropping when they are 'sent down' if they lose their group?
Side issue is how to get someone to finish the group if they know they can no longer win it.

IDEAs to improve: Love to see some excitement to how a League group is set up. How about whoever wins their division gets to draft the people they want in their group for the next league session. People sign in to play, but Who knows who gets picked where? Or maybe top two finishers pick their League grouping. (or maybe winner of group A picks others in group, but winner of group B moves up to group A no matter what. And winner of group C moves to B, and becomes group B chooser. Same way for group D to C) benefit to this picking idea is the potential that people will be picked based on who actually plays their matches, and who is reasonable to schedule with. If one is concerned with Group A winner picking lower levels, most people do not want to play a person less than 100 from their ELO, so that should have some safeguard.

- my schedule doesn't allow play in league during growing season
- there is no motivation for me to try to "climb the ladder" because it isn't possible when you must skip one or two league sessions per year.
- matches of 7 games make it even harder to set aside time to play.
- I am more motivated to play competitively if a team is involved. I'm not as interested in winning just for myself. So, a non-team event is less likely to get my attention

unless

it promotes my playing with people I don't often get to play against.

In some ways, it might be just as fun to have a place for 3 or 5 game matches (on any map, or any format) that keeps records. I often (when I've time and a willing opponent) played a 3 game series for fun. Usually when 2 games are split, we try a 'decider' game.

We could have various categories and results would have to be largely self-reported over a period of time.

Rules would include playing another person only once in any given category.

Categories would be best of 3 for each map
best of 5 for each map
and best of 5 AAT.
Could even include a "fun" map set that includes the snake, no 5 no 6, draw open, etc.

Like fantasy games, you might set a minimum number of games to qualify and then let winning percentage rank the players. Let it run for 3 months and use the results to set up various knock out tourneys for the formats that seems most popular. Top 16 in win percentage play. If others don't qualify for that, could easily do a QT for the rest on the map.

The idea appeals to me because it encourages me to play other people and to try other maps or formats. It will encourage others because I would be motivated to ask them to try some of these so I can log another match.

Of course, both players would have to agree that the match is to be logged - with the winner recording. And the other issue is getting everyone to enter these matches in a recording tool. There is no way we should expect an individual to record them all for us. That's probably the main reason why this won't work at all.

- my schedule doesn't allow play in league during growing season
- there is no motivation for me to try to "climb the ladder" because it isn't possible when you must skip one or two league sessions per year.
- matches of 7 games make it even harder to set aside time to play.
- I am more motivated to play competitively if a team is involved. I'm not as interested in winning just for myself. So, a non-team event is less likely to get my attention

unless

it promotes my playing with people I don't often get to play against.

In some ways, it might be just as fun to have a place for 3 or 5 game matches (on any map, or any format) that keeps records. I often (when I've time and a willing opponent) played a 3 game series for fun. Usually when 2 games are split, we try a 'decider' game.

We could have various categories and results would have to be largely self-reported over a period of time.

Rules would include playing another person only once in any given category.

Categories would be best of 3 for each map
best of 5 for each map
and best of 5 AAT.
Could even include a "fun" map set that includes the snake, no 5 no 6, draw open, etc.

Like fantasy games, you might set a minimum number of games to qualify and then let winning percentage rank the players. Let it run for 3 months and use the results to set up various knock out tourneys for the formats that seems most popular. Top 16 in win percentage play. If others don't qualify for that, could easily do a QT for the rest on the map.

The idea appeals to me because it encourages me to play other people and to try other maps or formats. It will encourage others because I would be motivated to ask them to try some of these so I can log another match.

Of course, both players would have to agree that the match is to be logged - with the winner recording. And the other issue is getting everyone to enter these matches in a recording tool. There is no way we should expect an individual to record them all for us. That's probably the main reason why this won't work at all.

Rob
GFF

There is something almost exactly like this in the works.

I am calling it "Challenge 4" or "Challenge 6". 2 players will log in a forum thread that they agree to play a match of either 4 or 6 games (equal starts for both), and then record the results. It could be USA map, Asia, or even an AAT set of 6 games. The results will be used in my "Tournament" ELO. Also as GFF suggests we could then have some sort of Knock out tournaments, or maybe even get you a first round bye in SPWC/EMC/AMC. I am still working out the details, so any more suggestions would be helpful.

In every season there are the same players who are waiting with their games till the last week starts. If you have 3 months, the will start in the 12th week. If you have 12 months, they will start in the 52nd week. I don't think the will change their behavior. The problems will always be the same.

And: Too big groups are too arbitrary. If you want a strong league - for example Div A - 10 players are enough. More players will cause a weaker league and less fun for the Tops.

2.) No jumping up/down for 2 steps please.

3.) No comeback for players to the group where they were before they quit.

If you quit league it's your own decision. I don't think a "Lex Top Players" is nescessary. All of the Div A players nowadays had to climb up that way. If you think you are strong enough ---> just compete with the lower divisions first. If you quit league you should lose one division per each season.

Well there'a large consensus over no double jumps, and over figuring something out about new entries.

I think there should be only 1 league during the year, more meaningful, more visible, more attractive that would clear up also the tourney calendar.
I got feedback by pm from 10 players or so... A longer league, which would be more competitive, seems to be preferred.

The main goal is to tend towards a more consistent calendar, more consistent format.

Main goals :
We have a new tool called TELO, that we should use and overuse to make it more meaningful, which could be a reference for future seedings in SPWC, League and why not Team Tournaments.
I hope Drake will manage to publish the whole rankings so that everybody can know their TELO.

You wanna improve your TELO in Asia, Swiss, AAT and Europe to get a better seeding ?

Quote:

I am calling it "Challenge 4" or "Challenge 6". 2 players will log in a forum thread that they agree to play a match of either 4 or 6 games (equal starts for both), and then record the results. It could be USA map, Asia, or even an AAT set of 6 games. The results will be used in my "Tournament" ELO.

Simple idea, low maintenance. Only drawback : some may sit on top of TELO and admire their name by not playing anyhting.

About League :

No double jumps = 2 solutions
1) Make league a yearly event, and reset everything after one season.
2) If people want to keep some kind of ladder = fill up the divisions with promotions and new entries according to their TELO. Asking for no double promotions and new entries at the bottom give little meaning to ladders.

Seeding:
All done according to TELO.
You want to play with the best ? Beat players regularly during SPWC, NC and why not challenges set up by Drake. TELO is flexible enough to reward good streaks and reflect the "shape of the moment".

Format : My base is 48-56 players.

Format 1 : 4 groups x 12-14 players each /4 groups at the same level.
Seeding according to Telo. Playoffs

Top 2 of each groups. Bo9/bo11/bo13 --> QF, SF, F. Overall winner of the League

Top 2 of each group in Division play SF and Final. --> Overall Winner of League

Outcome =
Let's say top 8 in each group Division A + top 2 of each group in B are guaranteed a spot in A the follwing year. SPWC winner guaranteed a spot.
Rest of A is filled with new entries/veteran players according to their TELO.

Pros : more competitive than format 1. Players who do well in NC and SPWC have a shot to be in A the following year even if they did not sign up first year.Cons : maybe not much meaning around mid-league for players who have a hard time in B. (Chin up, and kick asses to improve your Telo = could be motivation).

Winner of Division A is the overall winner. Top 2 of each group in Division B are guaranteed a spot in the following year league + Top 8/10 of Division A. Rest of Division A is filled up according to TELO.

Pros = Harsh competition at the topCons = Hard to go up.

I think little groups and more divisions/more levels contribute to more nonsense in the promotion/relegation system. If someone has a good format with little groups, please share.

Schedule would still to be discussed. But it mainly lies on players. Players make tournaments alive, serious and valuable...Format is not responsible for the problems even if those problems can be considered ahead of time.

Speaking as someone who is 'outside' of the box, it is clear that many people are not happy with the way in which the league system appears to have stagnated. It is also clear that many of the top players have different ideas as to which direction League play needs to move forward.

A couple of options:

a) Suspend the 'official' League programme for 2014, which leads to,

b) If different groups want to set up 'friendly' competitions with rules that they can all agree on and therefore test for the wider audience, this could be a good thing. You may also be able to encourage players who have not played league before to play in a 'non-serious' competition (if such a thing exists )

This might mean that for the 2015 season, everyone comes back refreshed, with new ideas and new players.

As an aside, has there ever been any consideration for a Single Game Knockout (i.e. one game only) competition with no seeding (like the FA Cup in England) or partial seeding (like the DFB-Pokal in Germany) with a new draw made after each round ?

I am calling it "Challenge 4" or "Challenge 6". 2 players will log in a forum thread that they agree to play a match of either 4 or 6 games (equal starts for both), and then record the results. It could be USA map, Asia, or even an AAT set of 6 games. The results will be used in my "Tournament" ELO. Also as GFF suggests we could then have some sort of Knock out tournaments, or maybe even get you a first round bye in SPWC/EMC/AMC. I am still working out the details, so any more suggestions would be helpful.

Cool. I thought I read a little about this a while back, but couldn't quickly find it again.

If I recall, my only issue with it was that you had to challenge players to move up or down. I like the idea of challenging anyone with less focus on chasing down the top rated players at any given time. I suspect it would get tiresome for those at the top of the rankings to have to respond to everyone who wants a chance at them. Whereas, it would just be nice to have a reason to ask various persons to play a match on various maps.

Drake,
I specifically like including AAT - and of course, I'd like to see every map. I realize some will remain unpopular, but it might spur a little more interest in some of the other maps.

I'd like to see TAG fall into this as well.

If there is a link to more details, point me at it and I'll see if I have any suggestions for you.

Well, I might have a good viewpoint on this... being pretty new to it...

I only played in one league season then was unable to compete in the following one due to a job change... but keen to rejoin...

So I played one season, and I really enjoyed it. It's the only US single player that you play for yourself other than the SPWC -which I bombed out of after one match I think...

I had no scheduling problems other than stepan1972 not showing up at all, so same for entire group.

My suggestions (and I've not really encountered problems)
1. Force players to play half of their matches by the half way point...
2. No 2-league jumps/falls. I want to climb up to league A, but a 2-league jump seems nonsensical even to me...
3. Retain your league standing. If I was to go into the bottom division as I was unable to play last season I wouldn't want to rejoin, as if previous matches are a waste of time. I think Farmer Rob said something similar. I really believe that this is something to be included...
4. Im not fussed about little reformatting changes, all this telo stuff with regards to league. Surely if you keep your league standing and then return and play a full season you will go down if you aren't good enough, up if you are... If you run fewer seasons/year then that's a shame but if you feel its necessary to get player numbers up, do it. If its unlikely to increase player numbers, why do it??
5. TD power to relegate players causing scheduling problems...
- Is there any reason that someone wouldn't provide either their email address or phone number to TD so they can be contacted easier if they aren't online for a while? I don't mean posting it to all the players, but Id be happy for one responsible person to have it...
Will

There is nothing really wrong with league that a few minor changes can't fix, but I am personally looking at the bigger picture.

What I would like to see is 2 things.

1.) Design or modify events so more players try different maps. Fusion Cup does this, as well as AMC/SMC, but I would like to see a little more.

2.) Have a "Champion" on each map each year that players compete for. And the one requirement is that you can accomplish this without having to join league, or NC, or SPWC, etc. You can pick and choose which events to compete in and still have the chance to be crowned "Champion" for that year. You have to play in something and win, but you don't have to play everything.

So my idea is to have a 4-8 player Round Robin event with the best players of the year - those players would be the Top 1 or 2 in League Division A, the Top 1 or 2 of SPWC, the Top 1 to 3 on the TELO ranking, and 1 for the player who did best in "Challenge 6"s (new event I'm working on).

It would kinda be like an elite division above league division A that you can only qualify for by winning other events. the first year it would probably only be a 4 person RR and if it works out expand it to 6 or 8. A 4 person RR would mean 3 matches for each player (a total of 6 matches) which could be done in 1 month (league style, schedule when you want but just done with all by deadline). The scoring would be similar to league to determine the ultimate winner (match points, game points head to head).

For a map like Asia where there probably won't be a league, the breakdown might be different, just the top 2 of AMC, and the top 2 of TELO, etc.

We 6-7 times of the year where do 6-7 tournaments.
We use the same method of tennis.
We can call the tournaments at Wimbledon and Roland Garros with the names of ticket city.Es: Houston, Palermo, Zurich

4 usa
2 europe
1 swiss or asia

At least 16 players for the tournament.If you enter more players in the preliminary rounds as individual tournament

The first tournament the draw is based on Elo rating list of the three specialty.
From the second the tournament draw is based on the World League Tournament.
If you sign up new players start in the preliminary rounds.
There is no limit to the number of players.
Only limit over 1500 or players who normally play tournaments

Matches from 7 meetings as nc

This idea has the advantage of simplifying the formula of the League which is sometimes too long.
And can entice new players to join.

Is community ready for swiss style tournament ?
Anytime it has been discussed, it happened to be discarded very quickly.
We've had swiss style tournament concept for League in our starting ideas with Drake (his idea) but considering the global feedback about renovating League, we did not even offer it.

About pairings ? Random for first round ?

If League is played Swiss style in 10 rounds, do we need 10 deadlines ?

I'd like to see double elimination in AMC/SMC, and maybe AAT/ FUN tourney (but this is their organizer's decision). It would work better for smaller turnouts, and would solve the problem of a Round Robin, and so that players can get a chance to play at least 2 games instead of 1 in AMC and SMC.

As daedin mentioned, the most common way to do the pairings is on elo: nr 1 vs nr (n/2)+1, i.e. with 80 players, 1 plays 41, in round 2 1 most likely plays 21. You can allow for ties as well with swiss, so equal starts are a possibility.

Run one round of league (when NC is done) with a Swiss set up. Keep rules as simple as possible and failure to play by a deadline is 0-0 so we don't get hung up on something.

Personally, I'd favor a random start. But, whatever works.

Once a round of league has been run with it, you can see what enhancements or other methods might be fun to try. it should work for US duals - we have enough players. For the other maps, still need to do something with that.

Rob
GFF

SOS Truckerteller wrote on Thu, 26 September 2013 12:13

swiss is for big groups yes.

As daedin mentioned, the most common way to do the pairings is on elo: nr 1 vs nr (n/2)+1, i.e. with 80 players, 1 plays 41, in round 2 1 most likely plays 21. You can allow for ties as well with swiss, so equal starts are a possibility.

Swiss, but not boX and just count wins and losses, but rather play 6 (or whatever) games and count the games.

So after round #1 you can have 6,5,4,3,2,1 or 0 points, and so on.
If points are equal, number of wins is tiebreaker.

This would be a great format that I'd like to play in general.

Problem being, that with so many tournaments around where you have to find a date each week, I don't think we can have another one of those.
So I believe League has to stay flexible in term of playing dates.

Would this be a good option for SPWC?
Maybe play some rounds of Swiss (so everyone plays more matches) and then Semifinal and Final for the top 4?

For pretty much every event - SPWC, NC, Fusion, League... it works for all of them, EXCEPT: The biggest problem is the deadline. You can't do pairings till everyone is done.

With single and double elim events you have the possibility of playing ahead, and even in NC the rounds overlap a few days.

The good thing about swiss is players can drop out at any time and it doesn't effect the event at all - you just pair the players that still want to play, unlike in League where someone plays half their matches then doesn't finish, there has to be rulings.

Swiss style works for almost any number of players, you just play more or less rounds depending on the number of people.

Swiss works fine with ties, so no need to do best of 5/7/9 - each player can have equal starts.

If we try it, it should replace a KO event, not league - since I think one main selling point of league is the flexibility in scheduling matches.

All the swiss style events I have been in cut to a TOP 8 KO after a certain number of rounds. Maybe we cut to top 4 instead, or just play a fixed number of rounds and the player with the most points wins.

I think swiss style tournaments tend to be 1 round longer than a single elim event, so don't need too much extra time to get it done.

The only other problem which is very minor is, at least in the events I've been in, there has been a little random element in the pairings - players with the same number of points get randomly paired. This would require trust of the TD to do the pairings right (there are programs out there that do it, but someone still has to be trusted to run the program).

Thanks for killing league, you fools! Just a question: Why is it always the same dumb issue? Some people who can't manage to play their games within three (!!!) months are killing a complete tournament. Thanks Qorlas for making a tough and good job so far!

Thanks for killing league, you fools! Just a question: Why is it always the same dumb issue? Some people who can't manage to play their games within three (!!!) months are killing a complete tournament. Thanks Qorlas for making a tough and good job so far!

Well, Qorlas is gonna offer an updated league format, more like a reset rather than a killing.
Not much is gonna change and I hope he'll find a format that would satisfy the historical participants... as well as having more players sign up.

We never had the intention of killing the league, but it was time to shake things up and to have a fruitful discussion.
I think we've had quality ideas from a various range of people.

The tournament more likely to change seems to be SPWC. We will give a try to a Swiss-style format on AMC, AAT or SMC (Fusion?) before playing SPWC this way.